Since robot bartenders came up in that slopfondler post... From a recent email exchange:

They:	I just re-read your 2021 Cocktail Robotics cancellation post: "Weren't able to round up enough robots... maybe Plague World just isn't ready for barbots yet." Curious what your read is. On one hand, TechShop closed, hackerspaces shrinking, weekend builders aging into other responsibilities. On the other, robotics as a professional field is bigger than it's ever been, so it's not that the people are gone, it's that the unpaid-saturday-night version of them is. Covid artifact or structural?
jwz:	Yeah, I dunno. Maybe the spirit of whimsy has left the land. Or at least been evicted from San Francisco. You're the first person to even mention Cocktail Robotics to me in I-can't-remember-how-long. So it's not as if people are banging on the door asking me "Hey, when's that coming back, I've got a cool idea..." And, oh wow, can you imagine what an AI-slop shitshow it would be now? Half the entries would be "I made a vending machine that can talk like a sexy secretary, I think we might try to get VC funding for this".
They:	Yeah, the sexy secretary vending machine fear is real. Half the discord servers full of robotics hobbyists in 2026 are also half-full of people workshopping their seed pitch.
jwz:	That is horrifying and unsurprising. Also that this is all happening on Discord instead of out in the open on the fediverse means that I'd never even see it...
They:	Yup - I'm in a handful of robotics and adjacent slack/discord communities and that's the shape of it. Maybe I'm in the wrong ones. Would you say the fediverse has any meaningful SF robotics/maker presence these days?
jwz:	None that I've seen!

Previously, previously.

Comedian will host the 99th Oscars in 2027 after viewership dipped this year despite rise in social media engagement

Conan O’Brien’s era as Oscars host is becoming a trilogy. The Emmy-winning comedian will be back to host the 99th Academy awards in 2027, leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science said on Tuesday.

O’Brien hosted the last two Oscar ceremonies to positive reviews. Earlier this year, in his opening monologue, he said he was “honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards … Next year it’s going to be a Waymo in a tux.”

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• Club president launches scathing attack on media

• No mention of turmoil, fights or José Mourinho

“Good afternoon, I regret to inform you that I’m not going to resign.” In a hot, packed press room at Valdebebas before an audience hurriedly summoned to witness a news conference so bizarre that they could barely believe what they were seeing, Florentino Pérez sat at a desk with a phone that he kept looking at and some papers that he didn’t, and announced that he was calling presidential elections at Real Madrid. What he didn’t announce was a date, an electoral commission, the resignation that is required for polling to actually happen, or indeed any details at all.

There was nothing about Madrid’s on-field issues either, nothing about the coach, no mention of José Mourinho, no explanation for the season they have just suffered. “I’m not here to talk about sporting issues,” Pérez said. Instead, he was there to deliver a surreal, repetitive rant that lasted over an hour, way after his own staff had tried to bring it to a close. A room of people, including the directors in the front row and lined up against one wall, looked at each other: yes, this was actually happening. Pérez went on and on, and on, the incoherent ramblings of a 79-year-old man who insisted “my health is perfect”.

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DEN HAAG (ANP) - Ministers Bart van den Brink (Asiel) en David van Weel (Justitie) veroordelen de vernielingen en het geweld bij een opvanglocatie voor asielzoekers in Loosdrecht. Ze reageren boos en verbolgen op X.

Justitieminister Van Weel vindt "met zwaar vuurwerk en fakkels anderen in gevaar brengen onaanvaardbaar." Bij het pand is brand uitgebroken. De brandweer werd bij aankomst tegengehouden door de menigte. "Laat de politie en brandweer hun werk doen," schrijft de VVD'er daarover.

Asielminister Van den Brink (CDA) vindt dat "wat we vanavond hebben gezien, niks te maken heeft met demonstreren."

In Loosdrecht worden sinds deze week tientallen asielzoekers tijdelijk gehuisvest in het leegstaande gemeentehuis. Tegen de komst van deze opvangplek zijn meerdere demonstraties geweest, die ook al eerder uitliepen op rellen.

WENEN (ANP) - Israël heeft zich dinsdag in Wenen zoals verwacht geplaatst voor de finale van het Eurovisie Songfestival. Het omstreden land, dat meedoet met zanger Noam Bettan, kreeg in de eerste halve finale genoeg punten van jury en publiek.

Favorieten voor de eindzege Griekenland en Finland kunnen zich ook opmaken voor de eindstrijd in de Wiener Stadthalle. Daarnaast zijn België, Zweden, Moldavië, Servië, Kroatië, Litouwen en Polen door.

Vijf landen vielen dinsdag af: Portugal, Georgië, Montenegro, Estland en San Marino. Donderdag volgt de tweede halve finale en worden nog eens tien tickets voor de finale verdeeld.

APELDOORN (ANP) - De politie heeft dinsdagavond opnieuw mensen aangehouden bij een protest tegen de opvang van asielzoekers in Apeldoorn. Dat gebeurde bij de rotonde in de wijk De Maten, de plek waar al meerdere avonden op rij wordt gedemonstreerd. Een woordvoerder van de politie bevestigt dat zeker vijf mensen zijn aangehouden voor het afsteken van vuurwerk.

In Apeldoorn is een noodopvang voor 240 asielzoekers gepland. Mensen die daartegen willen demonstreren, mogen dat tussen 19.00 en 20.00 uur doen. Gemeente en politie hielden al rekening met een demonstratie. Zaterdag werden al 26 mensen, zondag elf en maandag vier mensen aangehouden.

WASHINGTON (ANP/AFP) - Het Golden Dome-project van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump gaat 1,2 biljoen dollar kosten (ongeveer 1 biljoen euro). Dat heeft de rekenkamer van het Amerikaanse Congres, de Congressional Budget Office (CBO), berekend. Het bedrag moet over de komende twintig jaar worden uitgegeven.

De Golden Dome moet de Verenigde Staten beschermen tegen raketten en is gebaseerd op de Israëlische Iron Dome. De aanschaf van het systeem zou het meeste geld kosten, waaronder een deel dat vanuit de ruimte zou opereren.

Vorig jaar kondigde Trump aan dat het project 175 miljard dollar (ongeveer 150 miljard euro) zou kosten. De CBO meldde diezelfde maand dat de kosten een stuk hoger kwamen te liggen, op maximaal 542 miljard dollar (460 miljard euro).

Google is rolling out a new line of laptops based on Android instead of ChromeOS, and using the opportunity to try and move upmarket from the budget-conscious Chromebooks – while also baking AI into every fissure of the system. The new line of so-called Googlebooks seems even more obtrusive about pushing embedded AI than Windows 11 embedding Copilot into everything. With the OS on Googlebooks, which the company touts as the best of Chrome OS and Android, even moving the cursor over an on-screen task such as the text of an email nags you to offload work to Gemini. Google was has been publicly planning to merge Android and ChromeOS for a while, with Android boss Sameer Sama saying last year that the Android codebase would be the core of the new platform. This gives the company a chance to break into the premium laptop market, using one of its core assets, the Android ecosystem, to differentiate from the kid-friendly and budget-oriented Chromebook lineup. While the laptops won't be coming until later this year, we can already see from the press materials and video demo that this new kind of notebook is meant to out-Copilot Microsoft. One of the main features demoed, Magic Pointer, activates when you wiggle the cursor and shows you contextual suggestions based on what you hover over. For example, in the video, Alexander Kuscher, Senior Director of Laptops and Tablets at Google, showed how hovering over the date in an email brought up options to view his schedule, craft a reply saying "I'm in town on May 19," or even use Google maps to suggest meetup spots. Having AI crammed into Windows Notepad seems quaint by comparison. Kuscher also showed how dragging images on a Googlebook can combine them. He dragged a photo of a nursery onto an image of a swath of wallpaper and a picture of a crib and the system generated a picture of the nursery with the crib and the wallpaper included. The Google exec pointed out that an act like combining photos normally involves logging into a chatbot, uploading the photos, and giving it a prompt. Here it was just drag and drop. No word on whether the system can use your photos as training data. Android apps will also work on Googlebooks, and users will also be able to launch them from the phones, much like Apple's iPhone Mirroring. In the demo, Kuscher showed Duolingo running in a portrait-shaped window on the desktop operating system as if it were on his phone. Google said that Googlebooks are being "built with premium craftsmanship and materials” by partners like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. They also sport a Google-colored glowbar on the cover so everyone knows who owns your digital soul. Considering the RAM shortage and the fact that IDC expects PC shipments to decline by 11.3 percent in 2026, Google has picked a challenging time to come out with a whole new category of laptop. While the company has not released pricing, we can only imagine that Googlebooks will be significantly more expensive than Chromebooks, which are currently in the $200 to $500 range in the US. These new notebooks are likely to compete with premium consumer Windows and macOS laptops at a time when demand is declining and people are holding onto old devices longer. We see no evidence that Google is even targeting businesses and we doubt IT departments would be interested in the features the company has focused on. Google also announced the expansion of Gemini Intelligence onto high-end Android devices (i.e., Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices) as part of Tuesday’s I/O preview, noting that it’s designed “to help your phone handle boring tasks for you.” Google provides examples like filling out online forms, summarizing websites, and even rewriting voice-to-text messages to get rid of pauses and other natural speech patterns that detract from the written word. Speaking of Chromebooks, we asked Google what will become of its budget hardware line with the release of the Googlebook, but we didn’t hear back. We imagine that they will probably continue to serve the educational market for some time. Google made several other announcements during Tuesday's presentation, including a new Pause Point feature in the upcoming Android 17 that follows in Apple’s steps by protecting you from your own worst instincts to scroll endlessly or waste half your day playing chess on your phone. It allows you to mark certain apps as "distracting" so that when you launch them, the phone asks you to take a deep breath and reconsider your actions, which is something Apple’s mindfulness app doesn’t do. To the bane of everyone tired of social media reaction videos, Google is also baking the format right into Android with Screen Reactions that will allow users to capture video of their device screen along with sticking themselves in the lower corner so they can regale everyone with their opinion about whatever they’re talking over. ®

AI models can take your written work, they can take your voice, and they can even take your likeness to use for training material and for creating content that looks exactly like it came from you. Now, some actors are promoting a new licensing spec designed to protect their famous faces and yours too. The newly formed public benefit non-profit is extending the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) spec developed by the RSL Internet Collective with the draft RSL Media Human Consent Standard (RSL-MEDIA) 1.0, which aims to cover creative works as well as people's names, likenesses, voices, and other identity attributes. The initial launch allows people to sign up and reserve an identifier that will serve as a key to structured data entered into the RSL Media public registry, scheduled to launch next month. The registry will allow people to verify their identities, set permissions governing the use of their works and likeness, encode those permissions for machine consumption, and verify that AI systems are checking declared permissions. Whether there will be any legal consequences for AI services that ignore registry settings remains to be seen. The data broker industry in the US hasn't exactly suffered due to the notional existence of "privacy rights." And public concern about non-consensual AI nudification and explicit deepfakes hasn't really put an end to that form of technological abuse or punished the social media sites distributing it. But this time, Hollywood has shown up. "AI technologies are expanding rampantly, essentially unchecked and unregulated," said celebrated actress and RSL Media co-founder Cate Blanchett, in a statement. "In order for humans to remain in front of these technologies, consent must be the first consideration. RSL Media is a simple, effective and free solutions-based technology for facilitating and activating consent. It’s also the industry’s first practical solution where people everywhere, not just public figures, can assert control over how their work is used by AI." Nikki Hexum, co-founder and CEO of RSL Media, said, "AI can’t respect rights it can’t see, and this means human consent is virtually invisible in this new digital era. The right to decide whether AI can use your work or identity should not be reserved for only those who can afford lawyers or have platforms big enough to be heard, it is a basic human right." That's not entirely correct. Rights do not need to be seen to be respected; due diligence prior to using material that may be copyrighted is expected. Ignorance of copyright does not excuse infringement, even if it might mitigate potential liability. AI model makers could have chosen to respect rights by default, by seeking permission to use data for training. They could have chosen to seek permission to crawl websites and could have heeded existing signals to crawlers like the Robots Exclusion Protocol. They could have chosen to abide by the requirements of open source software licenses in harvested code. They did not do so, because Silicon Valley prefers to ask forgiveness rather than seek permission. Permission is expensive; there wouldn't be much of an AI industry if that were the norm. The law may be one of the things broken by those applying Meta's shelved mantra "move fast and break things." So far, industry disinterest in seeking permission has worked well – AI companies have been held to account in only a few of the hundred-plus lawsuits objecting to AI content capture. The underlying RSL standard is slowly gaining adoption. The RSL Collective says more than 1,500 media organizations, brands, technology companies, and standards groups now support it following the launch of RSL 1.0 last December and the relevant RSL XML file can be seen at sites like The Guardian. While it's unclear what impact the RSL has had on AI biz behavior, extending the RSL to cover personal identity with the RSL-MEDIA standard may stir broader interest in AI rules and their enforcement. Or it may just affirm the XKCD comic about specifications and how they proliferate. There are already several similar protocols: TDM AI and TDMRep, Spawning's ai.txt, AI Preferences, not to mention a few that focus solely on images and commercial offerings like Cloudflare's Pay per crawl. But RSL Media may have a leg up thanks to the involvement of high-profile celebrities like Blanchett and endorsements from similarly well-known peers. "Of course artists and cultural creatives will inevitably be involved with AI," said Dame Emma Thompson in a statement. "At the moment, however, AI is merely stealing from us all. This is an urgent and essential initiative. It's also eminently doable, so let’s do it without delay." ® Editor's note: This story was amended post-publication with clarification about the relationship between RSL Media and the RSL Internet Collective.

Dinosaur Jr.

elian_fotografo has added a photo to the pool:

A veces el paisaje no necesita nitidez para transmitir algo.
Hay momentos que pasan rápido, pero igual dejan una sensación difícil de explicar.

The EU plans to target "addictive design" features on TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, including endless scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and recommendation loops that can steer children toward harmful content. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said new regulation could arrive later this year, alongside an EU age-verification app meant to make child-safety rules easier to enforce. CNBC reports: "We are taking action against TikTok and its addictive design -- endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications. The same applies to Meta, because we believe Instagram and Facebook are failing to enforce their own minimum age of 13," Von der Leyen said. "We are investigating platforms that allow children to go down 'rabbit holes' of harmful content -- such as videos that promote eating disorders or self-harm," she added.

The EU's executive arm has also developed its own age verification app, which has the "highest privacy standards in the world," according to Von der Leyen. Member states will soon be able to integrate it into their digital wallets, and it can easily be enforced by online platforms. "No more excuses -- the technology for age-verification is available," the EU chief said. The EU Commission could have a legal proposal prepared as soon as the summer, as it awaits the advice and findings of its 'Special Panel of experts on Child Safety Online.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

Located on the Edo-machi side of the riverbank of the Dejima Omotemon Bridge, this sunshade canopy measures 18m long, 4.5m wide, and 2.5m high. Because many tourists visiting Dejima arrive by tour bus, it is spacious enough for tour guides to provide historical commentary while overlooking Dejima. To ensure it can be easily used by citizens for events on a daily basis, it is equipped with basic facilities such as electricity and water. The roof, shaped like a flattened tetrahedron, has a simple four-sided geometric form, but the alternating edges of the roof (top) and ceiling (bottom) surfaces create various shapes.
The columns are spaced alternately every 4.5m, resulting in a span of approximately 7m. 100mm diameter, 16mm thick steel pipes are used, and the roof and columns are joined with screws. The ends of the roof are machined from 30mm thick plates, connecting the sandwich panel roof steel plates (top and bottom plates of 6mm steel plate with stiffeners spaced 450mm apart) while also functioning as drainage channels. Because the structural members themselves become the design elements, it can be realized at an economical cost. The sharp edges and tetrahedral geometric shape of the roof make it appear as if a thin sheet of paper is floating in mid-air. By using paint containing stainless steel flakes that reflect light in a sparkling, particulate manner, the shape and light reflection combine to make it blend into the landscape and disappear.

Source: Ney & Partners

Football fans from Scotland have raised $10,000+ for children's cancer care in Rhode Island as they head to the U.S. for World Cup games The visitors wants to do something tangible for the area they're visiting.

More details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/providence/comments/1tb69ib/providence_tartan_army_donation_confirmed/

Scottish football fans travelling to the city of Providence in Rhode Island in the United States for the FIFA World Cup have donated $10,000 to the Hasbro Children's Cancer Ward. The Scottish fans, estimated to be around 10,000 in number, will be staying in and around Providence from 10th June to 21st June as Scotland play two World Cup games at the nearby Gillette Stadium on the 13th and 19th June. Scottish fans have created the 'The Providence Tartan Army' and started a fundraising campaign with the hashtag #fortheweeones and sold merchandise with the profits allowing a large donation to the city's children's cancer unit, to support both patients and families.

Decades ago, "ultra" fans of U.K. football teams were often violent and racist. These Scottish fans are turning that reputation inside out, bringing economic activity and warm generosity to their destination. The shirts only ship to the U.K., sadly: as a Rhode Island resident, I would be happy to support these charming supporters.

T

In 1903 TNO railroad was building a line to serve the Clay Belt when in August 1903 silver was discovered at mile 103. Story goes a blacksmith, Fred Larose, threw a hammer at a fox and struck a vein of silver. Probably a legend but there were 2 other discoveries at that same time. They were kept quite as long as possible However word got out and by 1905 there was a tremendous rush . Cobalt became one of the largest producers of silver in the world. Peaking at 31 million ounces in 1911 and 450 million total production. The little hamlet grew from 100 people to over 12000. Overnight it went from tents to banks , it's own stock exchange , street cars .telephones theatres opera house etc. One of the first things built in 1906 was a hockey arena., with a capacity of 3500 And it was a huge entertainment for the miners. A professional league was established with heated rivalry between Haileybury Comets and the Cobalt Silver Kings The great Art Ross was one . Apparently earning $1000 a game. At a time when a miner earned $3 a day A description of a game in 1909 ; "in 1909 I was sent to report the final and championship match between the Cobalt and Haileybury teams. The utter disregard of money or rather the utter carelessness which with it was thrown around in connection with the Temiskaming League has been marvelous. As near as can be found out there was over one hundred thousand dollars bet on the last four matches and of that sum only fifteen or seventeen thousand on the last two. The crowds in the gallery, men and women, and there were hundreds of ladies present, invisible on account of the smoke, yelled and roared to their hearts' content and surging towards the edge, again threatened to break the railing, which they did some weeks before when a half-a dozen had to be sent to the hospital." They even had a womens hockey team Conditions were primitive at the beginning. Accidents, disease, fires. Safety was not a top priority. Nor was sanitation. in April 1906 a nurse Annie Saunders arrived from England . She didn't let anyone know she was a nurse until 7 tons of dynamite exploded a half mile from her house. ( Safety was not a priority) She tells her story in this article from Canadian Nurse Explosions, accidents , typhoid etc. She founded 3 hospitals. -- Fred Larose sold his claims most to Noah and Louis Timmins. $25,000 was a lot of money back then. Noah Timmins went on not just to be great grandfather of Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) But he also became a Gold King finding gold in Porcupine and what is now the City of Timmins producing over 70 million ounces gold. Timmins is also home to the deepest base metal mine in the world Kidd Creek over 10,000 feet deep The Kirkland Gold Camp . ( 45 million ounces)was also discovered as a result of prospectors from Cobalt. There is a stretch from Timmins, to Kikrland lake to Noranda to Val d'Or ( 300 kilometers) which is just mine after mine. Unbelievably rich. Discovered as a result of Cobalt. -- When people think of Houston they think of oil. Yet even Torontonians don't realise Toronto's impact in the mining world. Toronto also became the place for mining finance for the world. 45% of the worlds mining finance comes from Toronto -- The Prospector's and Developers Association of Canada holds an annual convention every March in Toronto. This year 32.000 attended from 141 countries. Looking to finance an exploration or develop a mine Toronto is your go to place. Cobalt now is just a shadow of its former self. A heritage site. Old mine workings etc everywhere. --

@martinv klopt, regelmatig ook tips of ai vragen aan het eind van een alinea laten staan.
"SEO-tip: Verwerk varianten als “ramen lappen”, “ramen schoonmaken” en “streeploze ramen” in tussenkopjes en alt-teksten van eventuele foto’s."
bron: https://www.welingelichtekringen.nl/tips/5-onmisbare-schoonmaaktips-voor-de-voorjaarsschoonmaak

Original Mastodon Post

"The Gale"
linocut print by Sybil Andrews
London, 1930

#linocut #printmaking #1930s #UK #sybilandrews #modernism #modernart

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: